Intelligent electronic devices have become necessities in people's daily lives. Users can communicate with others using instant communication tools or Short Message Service (SMS). Currently, an intelligent electronic device is typically equipped with a touch screen and a virtual keyboard to provide a user with a text input function. In the existing input methods based on virtual keyboard, a predefined virtual key has to be clicked in order to switch between Chinese and English languages input methods. For example, when a default interface is an interface for the Chinese input method, and a user wants to insert English text, he or she needs to switch to the English input method by clicking the key predefined for input method switching, before he or she can start inputting English text. Then, when the user wants to input Chinese text, he or she needs to switch back to the Chinese input method. If the user switches between the Chinese and English input methods frequently, the text input will be inefficient, and thus become inconvenient for the user.